By Dele Ogbodo
The Minister of Communications, Barr. Adebayo Shittu has said the partial Commercialization of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) will begin soon.
He said this is in keeping faith with second schedule part 1, section (6) 1 of the Public Bureau Enterprise (BPE) Private and Commercialization) Act, 1999, stressing that government will however intervene in the running of the entity.
Shittu, said: “Government would evolve new creative ways to keep it alive, not because it is a collective institutional legacy, but because it must rise up to being a key element in the communication value chain that has come to recognize and accept knowledge resource management as the greatest economic enabler in the increasingly changing global village.”
The minister who is the Chairman of the committee stated this while inaugurating the Steering Committee and project delivery team for postal sector reforms, restructuring and modernization of NIPOST over the week end in Abuja.
He said the old postal operations have rendered NIPOST commercially unappealing and unviable but not withstanding, not for sale but for the new NIPOST have come alive to be the best Nigerians can ever have in postal service delivery and economic enabler.
The Minister tasked the committee members to ensure that NIPOST effectively run in the post-restructuring and modernization by implementing the relevant national policies, laws and international best practices and also introduce a regulator that would make NIPOST robust to enable it compete in the postal market.
In his welcome address, the Permanent Secretary, Abdullaziz M. Abdullahi congratulated the committee members and assured them of the ministry support. He implored the the project delivery team to work hand in hand with the steering committee for best outcome.
Also speaking, the Director General of Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) Mr. Alex Okoh who is a member of the steering committee thanked the minister for his active and exemplary support that led to this development and he appreciated all the stakeholders and agencies for their relevant contributions.
Okoh, appreciated government for their wisdom in selecting them for this noble assignment and promised that they would work hard and deliver on the expected goals.